Charles Brooking

Charles Brooking (c.1723–59) was an English painter of marine scenes.

It is highly probable that Brooking’s father was a Charles Brooking (1677–1738) who was recorded as employed by Greenwich Hospital (London) between 1729 and 1736 as a painter and decorator. Charles Brooking senior had earlier been active in Plymouth and Ireland. On 27 November 1732 "Master Charles Brooking" was recorded as an apprentice, one of two taken on by Brooking senior on that date.

An anecdote related by the marine artist Dominic Serres about Brooking is that he worked for a picture dealer in Leicester Square, London, who exploited him until his “discovery” by Taylor White, the Treasurer of the Foundling Hospital in London.

Brooking became much more widely known in 1754, when as a result of his “discovery” he was commissioned by the Foundling Hospital to paint what is now titled A Flagship Before the Wind Under Easy Sail, following which he was elected a Governor and Guardian of the institution. This painting is a huge sea piece intended to "match" another painting, whereabouts unknown, said to be of a “Fleet in the Downs”, by Peter Monamy.

It is claimed that Dominic Serres received some instruction for a short time from Brooking. It has also been suggested that Francis Swaine was another pupil, but the age difference between the two painters was a mere two years, and there is no visual evidence that Swaine followed Brooking’s manner.

Brooking is said to have died of consumption on 25 March 1759, reportedly leaving his family destitute.

Brooking's earliest known works are two pictures, one depicting a moonlit harbour scene and the other a burning ship, which he signed and inscribed with his age, 17, and thus datable to 1740. Since he was described as a "celebrated painter of sea-pieces" in 1752, when he worked for John Ellis (c.1710–76), he had evidently been producing work for at least 12 years before that date. The mention by Ellis occurs in his Natural History of the Corallines, published in London in 1755. Ellis employed Brooking as a botanical draughtsman. An example of earlier work by Brooking is his painting of an engagement between Commodore Walker and a fleet of French ships which occurred on 23 May 1745, which was engraved and published by Boydell in 1753. This painting is now in the Greenwich Maritime Museum.

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